deja-vu, all over again

Whoever would have thought that my full fat, milky, 2 sugar cuppa would be healthier than an ice cool pint of water? Well this is the story..

“Drinking three or more cups of tea a day is as good for you as drinking plenty of water and may even have extra health benefits, say researchers”

After many tests and much deliberation, UK nutritionists have discovered that drinking 3 to 4 cups of Tea a day not only re-hydrates us as well as water, but it can also protect us against types of heart disease and even some cancers. But do you feel that you can keep trusting these nutritionists and medical experts? After all they did let us believe sunbeds were no risk to our health, and lets not begin to mention the Atkins Diet! We all fell for that low carb trick, but thanks for the clogging of my arteries.

Apparently the key to these ‘healthy’ cuppas are our best friends the Antioxidants, which can be found in brightly coloured fruits and vegetables, e.g. Spinach, blueberries, carrots, red peppers and tomatoes. Public health nutritionist Dr Carrie Ruxton, of Kings College London, tells us that

“Drinking tea is actually better for you than drinking water. Water is essentially replacing fluid. Tea replaces fluids and contains antioxidants so it’s got two things going for it.”

Ruxton claims it’s an urban myth that tea is dehydrating, rather it does the opposite, that actually caffeine still gives us a net gain of fluid no matter how strong our Tea is. She also explains that a good cup of Tea contains fluoride, which is good for the teeth and gives us strong bones. However, even though there is no solid evidence that Tea consumption is harmful to our health, every benefit has its losses..

Research suggests that Tea can sometimes prevent or just impair the body’s ability to absorb iron from the foods we eat, making it hard for Anaemics like myself to drink Tea in the healthy way we are told to, especially not at meal times when absorption is the most valuable. Ruxton’s team of nutritionists found that the average amount of tea drank is 3 cups per day, claiming that people prefer sugary drinks like Coca Cola, and that Tea is most common for older people because of its water percentage.

The best thing about this research though is that it was funded by the National Tea Council. The Tea Council, tea. council.
Amazing…

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 5th, 2008 at 1:08 pm and is filed under health/lifestyle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.